Biannual Bud and Lou

“Who’s on First?”

It was Bud Abbott and Lou Costello’s most famous routine and launched their careers in radio, then films, then television.

The pair’s radio show had several different incarnations, but they all included the quick back-and-forth play on words that brought them their initial fame. One version was taken off the air in 1943 when Costello became seriously ill. Quickly rushed into the breech was an unlikely pairing of Garry Moore and Jimmy Durante, which became such a hit that when Costello was ready to come back, the sponsor had to find a spot on another network.

Abbott and Costello’s second broadcast of the 1946-47 season for Camel cigarettes was examined by syndicated critic John Crosby on October 15, 1946. I always liked their wordplay, but Crosby outlined what he saw as a difficulty for the pair, which became more pronounced once they began to appear on television. For the record, the landlady in the episode was played by Verna Felton. Also uncredited are John Brown and Gale Gordon.

RADIO IN REVIEW
Comedy by Instinct
By John Crosby
Abbott and Costello are back on the air again (N.B.C. 10 p.m. Thursdays), a sure sign the ducks better start winging south because cold weather is just around the corner. As a matter of fact, this raffish pair of comedians are animated by instincts far more highly developed than any migrating duck. Their routines have the precision and predictability of a conditioned reflex. If you've never seen these particular conditioned reflexes, they're wonderful. If you have, it's another story.
In a recent sketch, Costello—that's the little fat one—was suffering from a strange malady; every time he told a lie or did anything wrong, an invisible pixie blew a horn. It went something like this: "Look at me! The picture of masculine virility; Two hundred and sixty pounds of bulging muscles. (Horn) Medium-sized muscles. (Horn) Teentsie-weentsie muscles. (Horn) Blubber (Silence) . . . Blubber."
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It's a well-worn idea with infinite variation. Its humor depends on Costello’s beautifully modulated inflections and brilliant timing. It took countless repetitions in countless vaudeville houses to get it down pat.
"I got money in the bank," boasted Costello.
"You got money in the bank!"
"Four hundred dollars. (Horn) Twenty-eight bucks."
They spit it at you like bullets and before the laughs die, you get more.
"You're in bad shape. You better make a will."
"Twenty-eight bucks. That isn't enough to start a college, is it?"
"No."
"Small college?"
"No."
"Junior college?"
"No."
The first time I heard Abbott and Costello, they were delivering the same sort of rapid-fire malarkey about hot dogs and mustard at the New York World's Fair in 1939. It went on for minutes and it was pretty funny. In fact, if you've never heard it, it still is.
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They are an excellent example of what happens when one amusement industry tangles with another. In vaudeville or even in musical comedy, you could reasonably expect to see this pair of comics not much more than once a year. In radio you get them every week. These routines get their punch from long practice—but not in front of the same audience.
Radio has simply taken over, undigested, a rather low but authentic form of comedy from another medium, just as the automobile industry borrowed the body design of the horse-drawn carriage. But, whereas the automobile industry rapidly modified the carriage body, Abbott and Costello have scarcely been modified at all.
There are a few up-to-date references about the housing shortage and the O.P.A. but Abbott and Costello are never quite at home with them. They prefer a gag they have gradually molded with their own hands from a little laugh to a great big belly laugh.
Abbott, for instance, is greeted at the door of Costello boarding house by the landlady, who apologizes for the mess on the floor. "Try not to step on my husband," she said. "It's his birthday." Or, if you'd like another sample, Abbott greets a lawyer at the door of Costello's room.
"Come in."
"Sorry, I'm late. I was detained at court."
"How did you make out?"
"I was acquitted."
"Good!"
"Father got 35 years."
You can see for yourself how one gag has been patiently grafted onto another, probably by trial and error. In the old day a comedian could, through a season, carefully fatten one joke into a whole five-minute routine. But, with substantially the same audience, week after week, you can't get away with it in radio. Just what the old-style comedians should do about radio is beyond me, but I have my own remedy for the listener. Tune in to them just twice a year.

The other Crosby columns of the week:

On October 14th, Duffy’s Tavern and insult comedy get a look. On the 16th, it’s a fairly local column on a bank jingle and radio etiquette. The 17th is about a show on a local New York station. It involves the incredible racism of a politician from Mississippi. Fred Allen’s “Radio Mikado” was quoted in depth in the column of the 18th and was transcribed in an earlier post.